|
Essay
Set Aside Prayer
"God, I offer myself to Thee -- to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always!"
This step brings us to the first of the action steps. There is no time between step 3 and working step 4. This is the moral inventory. The best way to do this step is to just do it. There is no such thing as a perfect inventory. This step will be done many times in your life. The first time is the most difficult as we have let many things pile up that we don’t need. The Big Book says that the number one offender is our resentments. So, making sure that we know how to handle this offender is of key importance.
This phase of doing a moral inventory of ourselves is the bulk of the work for the rest of the steps. We take stock of the things we’d like to let go of. These are the things that drain our energy and keep us from leading productive lives. Resentment drains me of my energy. Fears keep me from living the life I really want to. And my general responses to how these things affect my relationships in a negative way.
In many circles, it is common to have someone suggest that we burn our inventory as an offering to God. Once the inventory has been completely dealt with in this step study (or after Step 12), you may find that you want to do just that.
Discussion - Why do an inventory?
The Promises
The best reasons to work steps four through twelve are the promises found on page 63, 75, 84-5, and some more on page 88 in the Big Book.
Page 63: the step 3 promises
"...Established on such a footing we became less and less interested in ourselves, our little plans and designs. More and more we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life. As we felt new power flow in, as we enjoyed peace of mind, as we discovered we could face life successfully, as we became conscious of his presence, we began to lose our fear of today tomorrow, or the hereafter. We were reborn.
Page 75: the promises after taking step 5
"Once we have taken this step, withholding nothing, we are delighted. We can look the world in the eye. We can be alone at perfect peace and ease. Our fears fall from us. We begin to feel the nearness of our creator. We may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience. The feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly. We feel we are on the Broad Highway walking hand in hand with the Spirit of the Universe."
Page 84-5: Step 10 promises
"And we ceased fighting anything or anyone - even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality - safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition."
Page 88: Step 11 promises
"... We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions. We become much more efficient. We do not tire so easily, for we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves.
It works - It really does."
The Power
By running our own life through our own self will we have separated ourselves from our Higher Power and His power is what we need to relieve our obsession. Our separation from God makes it impossible to enjoy the promises in the Big Book. When we have His power, we can start having these promises in our lives. We make an inventory so we can see what we need to work on to remove any obstacles in our path to God. He has the power we so desperately need to stay food sober.
Logical to work a known successful process
Any successful business will conduct an inventory. This removes any unwanted waste or useless stuff lying around. For our purpose, the unwanted waste and useless stuff is what is blocking us from our HP, the power that we need to live a sane and happy life. Our inventories are similar in construction as shown in the chart below.
Commercial Inventory VS. Our Fourth Step inventory
Written list........................................................... Written list
Fact finding......................................................... Searching
The way it is....................................................... Fearless (the way it is)
Discover the truth............................................... Moral (honest or truthful)
Stock-in-trade..................................................... Self: our thinking and feeling & actions
Goods-in-store................................................... Our attributes
Disclose Damaged or un-sellable goods............ Disclose things blocking us from God
Get rid of them promptly & without regret.......... After frank discussion in step 5, Became willing & asked God (6-7)
Cannot be fooled about values........................... Move away from delusion, illusion, rationalization, & justification
Neglect leads to bankruptcy............................... Neglect leads us back to where we came from
The 7 parts of self
The seven parts of our self are defined below. To gain understanding of how we react and why we do some of the things that we are doing, we need to understand a bit about ourselves in the psychological sense.
The Seven Parts Of Self Defined
Self Esteem - How I think of myself
Pride - How I think others view me
Pocketbook - Basic desire for money, property, possessions, etc.
Personal Relations - Our relations with other people
Ambition - Our goals, plans and designs for the future
Emotional Security - General sense of personal well being
Sex Relations - Basic drive for sexual intimacy
These seven parts of self are related to three basic survival instincts. (Social, Security, Sex Instinct)
It’s helpful to see how our seven parts of self can drive us into resentments, fears and harming others. The following diagram helps us see how these relate to our reactions and behaviors that can cause us trouble. This is taken from AA again, but formatted to fit in this page.
BASIC INSTINCTS OF LIFE WHICH CREATE SELF
SOCIAL INSTINCT
SECURITY INSTINCT
SEX INSTINCT
COMPANIONSHIP - Wanting to belong or be accepted.
PRESTIGE - Wanting to be recognized, or to be accepted as a leader.
PRIDE - An excessive and unjustified opinion of oneself, either positive (self love) or negative (self hate).
PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS - Our relations with other human beings and the world around us
AMBITIONS - Our plans to gain acceptance, power, recognition, prestige, etc.
MATERIAL - Wanting money, buildings, property, clothing, etc. in order to be secure in the future.
EMOTIONAL - Based upon our needs for another person or persons. Some tend to dominate, some are overly dependant on others
AMBITIONS - Our plans to gain material wealth, or to dominate, or to depend upon others
ACCEPTABLE - Our sex lives as accepted by Society, God's principles or Our own principles.
HIDDEN - Our sex lives that are contrary to neither Society, God's principles or Our own principles.
AMBITIONOur Plans regarding our sex lives either acceptable or hidden.
RESENTMENTS
FEARS
HARM OR HURTS
Feelings of bitter hurt or indignation which come from rightly or wrongly held feelings of being injured or offended.
(Incorrect thinking)
Feelings of anxiety, agitation, uneasiness, apprehension, etc.
(Incorrect believing)
Wrong acts which result in pain, hurt feelings, worry, financial loss, etc., for others and also self.
(Incorrect actions)
Eliminate our Agnosticism in our fears that blocks us from our HP
I believe that fear is behind every character defect we have. The Big Book states that fear touches nearly every aspect of our lives. It is an evil corroding thread in our lives. It causes more troubles that stealing, since fear steals our faith away from us and faith is the opposite of fear.
These fears show us that in those parts of our lives we haven’t let God in. We are trying to rely on our own limited self and that is why we are afraid. This is where our fears show up as a manifestation of our agnosticism.
Our fears can comprise of things like being afraid of not getting something we want, like health, wealth, a partner, or children etc. They can also take on the form of being afraid of being found out about something done in the past, or not done in the past, or things that should be done now. Fears are basically future projections. They keep us from living in the here and now. Being in the here and now makes it possible to have a conscious contact with God. This contact can only happen in the present. This separation keeps me from the power I need to overcome my obsessions and take care of myself physically.
Other kinds of fears are like Phobias. These types of fears can cause a lot of trouble for us and may need professional help in order to overcome them. They still separate us from our conscious contact with God and need to be included on our inventory. If for nothing else to let us know to take a step towards getting the help we need to overcome it.
Assignments
Read the bottom of page 63 - 71 in the Big Book. You won’t be sharing with the group the work you will be doing on this assignment. You can share what you felt about it while doing it. I’ve also included some prompt sheets and tables to aid you. There are many ways to do a 4th step inventory list. I tried to put together several tables (one for each major defect - resentments, fear, and conduct (sexual and personal)) to aid in doing it the Big Book way. You may find you have a better one or one that works better for you. The point is to just do the inventory. Don’t let tables or charts make you nuts.
Before starting to work on your inventory, I suggest saying this prayer. As with all the prayers I’ve written in these assignments, they are only a suggestion, you can change the prayer so it works best for you.
God, please show me your will and help me write this inventory.
Help me see beyond what I think I know about myself and show me the real truth about myself. Please help me to face and be rid of the things in myself which have been blocking me from you, other people and myself. Please grace me with patience, tolerance, faith, strength and courage that I may have the power I require to write inventory. Please keep me safe and protected as I search for an experience and the real truth about myself. Remove my fear and ego which block me from seeing the truth about myself.
When stopping work on your inventory and turning to other things, I suggest saying this prayer. Repeat these prayers whenever you begin or stop writing on your inventory.
God, Thank you for your guidance and direction in writing this inventory Please help me to put it aside and go about my daily business.
When starting your inventory, to avoid procrastination, make a date with your sponsor to do your step 5 and share your inventory 10 days after you start it.
We start with resentments. You may want to review pages 64-67 before starting to fill out the table. I’ll be making reference to the work you’ve done in this inventory in future steps. I’ve tried to create them to translate easily to the other steps we’ll be working on. This resentment table will have links to steps 6, 7, 8, 9.
Take out the resentment table. We’ll be filling this table in two parts. First we’ll fill in the table just like how it is used on page 65.
For Old Timers: fill out the table for each resentment.
For New Comers: fill out the table by putting down the person, institution, or principle and all the resentments you have towards it.
For Both: Start with people closest to you, your family. Then widen the circle to include other people such as, friends and acquaintances from all the areas of your life (work, school, church, organization, etc). Then think of institutions you may have resentments at and include them (government office, the company you work for ...etc). Once you are finished with that you may have resentments at principles (like God-Deity, Ten Commandments, Satan, Death ... etc.)
In the table handout, you only have to put check marks next to the 7 part of self that are affected. So, write down everyone, institution, and principles that you are resentful at, the cause(s), then go back through and check which parts of the self are affected. Don’t forget to fill out the fear column as well as it applies.
After building our resentment table the Big Book tells us we are to look at them from another angle. Read pages 65-67. We are to see the people as sick. Our resentments are fatal since they block us from conscious contact with God. They drive us back to eating our trigger foods and binging. We must be rid of them. When we harbor these resentments we let others dominate us since they are occupying our minds and make us feel bad about ourselves and others. Resentments are part of our spiritual illness and our illness is fatal.
Read "Freedom from Bondage" in the Big Book (Starting on page 544 in either the 4th or the 3rd Edition). Copy the suggestion that helped free herself of her resentments.
We cannot be rid of our resentments by our own self-will. We turn to God for help. We become to realize that people who wronged us did it out of a spiritual sickness the same as ours. So, we pray to God a prayer for our resentments like the following.
God please help us to show _______ who wronged us the same tolerance pity and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend. Make me realize that they are sick persons and show me how I can be helpful to them. God save me from being angry. Your will be done.
Once we have done that we can fill in the last part of the resentment table, by answering the five questions listed there. This helps us in our steps 6 and 7. Our character defects can be easily found when we do this exercise.
Say daily prayers for each resentment that clings, the prayer above and the prayer suggested below until it is gone.
God Please grant _____ everything I want for myself, please give him/her health, prosperity, and happiness.
Next we turn our focus on the Fears that we have. We know we need to have our HP’s help in removing them. You can refer to pages 67-8. You can use the fear table included and notice that I’ve tried to follow the Big Books advice in how to inventory our fears.
In the column "Who or what are we afraid of", we can copy down all those from our resentment inventory to here. We can then focus on our fears. We think about why we have them. For some we might not be able to remember any reason why we have it and that’s ok. We then look at how this fear has or is affecting our 7 parts of self and check those parts.
From there we add any fears we may have from people, places, situations, and things. There are also many pairs of fears like a fear of failure can also mean that you have a fear of success as well. This type of work does outline our agnosticism in our lives as well as our spiritual illness in different areas of our lives.
Once you have filled out the first table, the second section is to help you pair down your fears. Sometimes we can have many fears that are basically from a root fear. For example, I could list fears of a teacher, my boss, a policeman, or a law. These would all be a root fear of authority for me. It makes our lists much more manageable and easier to understand ourselves when we list our fears as root fears.
We can think of one small step or steps to help us grow out of this fear. The last column requires that we meditate on what we think God would have us be with that fear and write it down. Once we have gotten our fears written and paired down, the Big Book says to pray to have God to remove our fears. "God, please remove our fears and direct our attention to what you would have us BE". Do this for each root fear.
Now we turn to the Sexual conduct table. Review pages 68-71. The Big Book has no opinion on sex, only "We don’t want to be the arbiters of anyone’s sex conduct". But it does give guidance on how to build our own sexual conduct statement. Here we take our table and list everyone we’ve been intimate with and we ask the 9 questions listed in the Big Book. We pay special attention to what we put in the ninth question, because we’ll be using our answers to help us build our "sane and sound ideal" for our sexual conduct.
First we are to ask ourselves about each relationship if it was selfish or not. Then turn and pray "God, Please mold my ideals and help me to live up to them." After prayer and meditation, we are to write down our sexual conduct ideal.
We must treat sex as any other problem. When we have a specific problem we turn to God in prayer and meditation. We remember that our sexual powers are God given and therefore good, neither to be used lightly or selfishly nor to be despised and loathed. We realize that only God is the final judge of our sex conduct and not people, though we might ask for their advice.
From page 70 in the Big Book, we can also write a general conduct ideal. We have to list the people we have hurt (what we’ll be working on in steps 8 and 9). Since we treat sex like any other problem, we can apply the same approach we took there to our general conduct as well. We look over our resentment inventory and put down the names of those we had harmed (physical, financial, or emotional harm). Remember that resenting someone doesn’t mean that you have harmed them. To this list we add people and institutions we had harmed without resenting them (i.e. I could shoplift something and not feel resentment, but had harmed the store I shoplifted from)
From here we answer the same questions and through prayer and meditation we write down our personal conduct ideal and become willing to grow into it. We ask for help to be able to live up to it.
Next is Secrets. Some groups have a custom of listing all secrets a person thought they’d take to the grave with them. In the Big Book there is some reference to harboring secrets and the effect that has in a person’s program. This is found in step 5 on pages 72-5. "...they had not learned enough of humility, fearlessness and honest, in the sense we find it necessary, until they told someone their entire life story." ..."...We must be entirely honest with somebody if we expect to live long or happily in this world." ..."We pocket our pride and go to it, illuminating every twist of character, every dark cranny of the past. Once we have taken this step, withholding nothing, we are delighted."
There is a saying that I agree with, "We are as sick as our secrets". So there is a table that is basically a blank page for you to use to write down any secrets that haven’t been covered in any of the other inventory work. You can write it down as a code so no one, but who you do your 5th step work, will know.
Readiness to Move to the next step
Once you have completed your inventory ask yourself
Was it thorough?
Was it fearless?
Was it searching?
Is it complete?
There is no such thing as a perfect inventory. I’ve done a half dozen of them and will do more in the future. If you’ve done it to the best of your ability, you are ready for step 5.
Prompt lists to help with filling out inventories
Fear Prompt List
Fear of drinking
Fear of old age
Fear of insanity
Fear of sorrow Fear of being broke
Fear of life
Fear of losing car, house, "stuff"
Fear of injury
Fear of losing spouse, friend
Fear of blindness
Fear of failure (SUCCESS)
Fear of deafness
Fear of poverty
Fear of death
Fear of money
Fear of cancer
Fear of wealth
Fear of dentists
Fear of law
Fear of doctors
Fear of court
Fear of hospitalization
Fear of police
Fear of pain
Fear of jail
Fear of psychiatrists
Fear of Income Tax People
Fear of Step 3
Fear of Making Direct Amends
Fear of Step 4
Fear of Surgery
Fear of Step 5
Fear of sex (INTIMACY)
Fear of Step 9
Fear of Love
Fear of Loss of Love
Fear of FEAR
Fear of Loss of spouse / partner
Fear of impotency
Fear of detachment
Fear of commitment
Fear of rejection
Fear of sponsor
Fear of criticism
Fear of AA
Fear of loneliness
Fear of GOD
Fear of crowds
Fear of churches
Fear of public speaking
Fear of candle-light meetings
Fear of flying
Fear of confined spaces
Fear of the dark
Fear of eye to eye contact
Fear of heights
Fear of "burning in hell"
Fear of fire
Fear of "the realm of the spirit"
Fear of being fired
Fear of psychic experiences
Fear of being laid off
Fear of water
Fear of financial insecurity
Fear of snakes
Fear of BEING CAUGHT at ANYTHING
Fear of "IF YOU KNEW THIS ABOUT ME"
Fear of animals, dogs, cats
Resentment Prompt List
People
Institutions
Principles
Father (Step)
Mother (Step)
Sisters (Step)
Brothers (Step)
Aunts
Uncles
Cousins
Clergy
Police
Lawyers
Judges
Doctors
Employer's
Employee's
Co-Workers
In-Laws
Husband vs. Wives
Creditors
Childhood Friends
School Friends
Teachers
Life Long Friends
Best Friends
Acquaintances
Girl Friends
Boy Friends
Parole Officers
Probation Officers
A.A. Friends
C.A. Friends
N.A. Friends
U.S. Service Friends
Marriage
Bible
Church
Religion
Races
Law
Authority
Government
Education System
Correctional System
Mental Health System
Philosophy
Nationality
God-Deity
Retribution
Ten Commandments
Jesus Christ
Satan
Death
Life After Death
Heaven
Hell
Sin
Adultery
Golden Rule
Original Sin
Seven Deadly Sins
The following Tables are there to be has a guide or aid to your inventory. Please use them with that in mind. If you need more rows, go ahead and add them. If you need more pages, go ahead and copy them. I found them useful because they had all the details on one page, and I didn’t have to keep referring back to the notes.
Resentment Inventory
Here is a table to help you to fill out your resentment inventory. Add as many rows as you need or print out as many copies as you need
For old timers, fill in each resentment separately.
For newcomers, put down the name and then fill in all the resentments towards that person.
First section in filling out this table: Think of everyone you have a resentment towards and put them down into this table. Study the table on page 65 in the Big Book and follow that format. This table is only here to help you follow that table. You only have to place a check on the seven parts of self that apply to each particular resentment
In this second section, we are to set aside our feelings and only focus on our part in the resentment.
I'm Resentful at
The cause
Self-Esteem
Pride
Pocket book
Personal relations
Ambition
Emotional Security
Sex relations
(Fear)
My Major part in any resentment is hanging onto it and reliving it, thus allowing it to hurt me over and over again.
The other BB questions- Where was I - Selfish, Self-Seeking, Dishonest, to Blame, or Frightened?
Fear Inventory
This is the first part of the Fear inventory worksheet. Read pages 67-68. Write down all your fears. This includes the pairs of fears and phobias. Look at resentment inventory and copy all that have (fear) checked.
This is the second stage of doing the fear inventory. We shorten our list by pairing down our fears into root fears. For example, we could have listed fears for parents, police, and teachers. We may have a general fear of those in authority. We pair this into one fear called authority. This is called the Root fear. Once we've paired down the fears and shortened our list we can look at the next small step we could do to overcome this fear. We get in contact with our HP and ask him what he would have me be.
What or Who are we afraid of
Why we have those fears
Self-Esteem
Pride (Other's View)
Pocket book
Personal relations
Ambition
Emotional Security
Sex relations
(Fear)
Root Fears
Steps To take with this fear.
What would God have me be with this fear?
Sexual Conduct Inventory
Write down each person you have been intimate with. Then answer these questions for each person.
Person:
Where have I been selfish in my conduct?
Where have I been dishonest in my conduct?
Where Had I been inconsiderate in my conduct?
Had I hurt that person (Emotionally, Physically, or financially)?
Did I unjustifiably arouse jealousy in that person?
Did I unjustifiably arouse suspicion in that person?
Did I unjustifiably arouse bitterness in that person?
Where was I at fault?
What should I have done instead?
My Sexual Conduct Guidelines:
General Conduct Inventory
This is a list of people and institutions that I have harmed by my general conduct. This can be physical, financial, emotional, or a combination of all the harms. We first pick from our resentment inventory the ones we've identified there that we've harmed. Then we look at those people/institutions that we didn't resent but have done harm to, e.g. I may have shop lifted at a grocery store. I didn't feel resentment towards the store, but I harmed the store when I stole from it.
Person/institution:
Where have I been selfish in my conduct?
Where have I been dishonest in my conduct?
Where Had I been inconsiderate in my conduct?
Had I hurt that person (Emotionally, Physically, or financially)?
Did I unjustifiably arouse jealousy in that person?
Did I unjustifiably arouse suspicion in that person?
Did I unjustifiably arouse bitterness in that person?
Where was I at fault?
What should I have done instead?
My Personal Conduct Guideline:
Secrets we thought we'd take to the grave.
There has grown a traditional part to step 4 in including secrets we didn't want to tell anyone. There is some reference to this in the Big Book when talking about step 5 (pg 72-25)
"... they had not learned enough of humility, fearlessness and honesty, in the sense we find it necessary, until they told someone their entire life story"
"We must be entirely honest with somebody if we expect to live long or happily in this world."
"We pocket our pride and go to it, illuminating every twist of character, every dark cranny of the past. Once we have taken this step, withholding nothing, we are delighted..."
|
